Inspired by a conversation with a good friend about a setting where heroes volunteer to die in their prime so that they can be resurrected to fight evil in their home kingdom when needed. This is my first time using Affinity Publisher to do something like this and it seemed like a good way to practice and get used to the tool. PDF version found here. Happy Halloween!
It's been a while since I have written anything for this blog, life has been crazy busy. To get back into the groove, here's a short list of some of the most influential Powers that Be in the setting of Beyond the Veil, in no particular order. Progress on the game marches forward at a slow but steady pace and soon I'll be happy with it mechanically and I can go add the setting information to the book instead of my notes.
1. The Basilisk. Father of Lies and Poison. Eternal boundary of the Father's Mire and the Oldwood. As old as time and equally as dangerous. His skin turns all that touches it to stone. His 4 eyes were plucked from his skull long, long ago after losing a bet and he desperately wants them back. More of a force of nature than an NPC, he's perfectly willing to interact with anyone passing by, and just as likely to not even notice you are passing over his ponderous mass. Sometimes not very smart people shoot cannons at him in an attempt to get him to move out of the way only to promptly be gobbled up by a head the size of a small hamlet, causing a brief, partial eclipse. He loves trivia and secrets, often bargaining safe passage across himself in exchange for news or novel riddles. Hs breath is said to be both ur-venom and panacea, the root of all toxins and source of all antidotes. At the very least, he can choose to inflict or cure all manner of horrid poisons on entire swathes of people that annoy or endear him.
2. Dryads. Dryads claim to be the oldest people of the Continent, second only to the Ents that birthed them. The city of Evergreen's namesake is the Ent that resides in the center of town, locked in eternal slumber. Dryads come in as many varietal forms as the trees of the Oldwood. Dryads have innate mastery and knowledge over plant life. They are not omniscient, however, and are just as capable of being tricked or scammed as any other person. They have a tentative peace with Humans and Ratlings, brokered by the various druidic sects and practitioners of the Old Ways and the Weaver Church. Unnecessary violence against the Oldwood is met with swift retribution, but they do not begrudge someone merely trying to survive. It is not always clear they can tell the difference between the two. They mingle freely with the people of Evergreen, and only enter Port City during negotiations brokered by The Church of the Weaver. The smell of industry sickens them almost as much as the controlled logging they have agreed to in exchange for an end to conflict with Port City and the overall preservation of the Oldwood.
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| Dryads by Midjourney |
4. The Port City Oligarchy of Natural-Industrialists. Natural-Industrialists or "The Council" for short. A council of indeterminate size, made up of industrialists, naturalists, scientists, alchemists, and what is left of the gentry that oversees the slow but steady expansion of industry brought forth by the invention of the steam engine. They maintain the only naval force on the Continent, mainly to protect trade ships coming and going along the coastline. The city is packed and dense, with the metropolitan area housing some 100,000 souls fed by farms sitting on lands clear-cut from the Oldwood. Society still lingers on the long, contentious war with the Dryads only a decade prior. Most of the Council is concerned with their own eccentricities and securing their legacies for future generations, lest they be forgotten in the annals of history. Port City is only a few hundred years old, and has grown rapidly due to early industrial machinery and an influx of money from foreign trade. More on the city itself in another post.
5. Spirans. A predominantly naval civilization that hails from The Spire, an enormous relic of the days of the Giants that they have turned into the capital of their home archipelago. They primarily worship Oceanus, and have foundational disagreements with Old Ways practitioners, believing that the natural state of the world is to be covered in water. Every year, as a right of passage, all the residents who became of age go on a hunt to slay a Wyrm, a Sea Serpent, and collect its teeth. They carry the scars and blades made from the beast's teeth for the rest of their life, the flesh is used to create leather goods, and the meat is preserved to feed their sailors on long voyages. Tattooing yourself in honor of those that died in the hunt is common, and a good way to tell when and where a hunt took place, as well as how many lives it claimed. In recent years, Spire's theocratic triumvirate has declared war with the people of The Continent, and have made landfall in the Father's Mire with no clear goal beyond encroaching upon the Oldwood to raze it to the ground. They have an advanced navy and military doctrine, utilizing tactics both mundane and mystical. Their most fearsome warriors carry containers of pressurized, flammable liquid that can be expelled and ignited with great force, burning even in heavy rains and under water. Long before war was declared, thousands of Spirans had immigrated to the Continent, and vice versa, leading to no small amount of tension among communities, particularly in Port City. The war is not popular with the average citizen, but there is a zeal amongst soldiers that truly believe in their cause. Their position in the Father's Mire is solid and secure, but the Mirefolk and fae spirits of the swamp hamper their activities more than they had anticipated, allowing only small contingents of soldiers north towards the Oldwood.
6. The Mirefolk. A collective of independent villages and towns that call the Father's Mire home. They can often be found rafting the crisscrossing network of streams and wetlands, ferrying goods and people wherever they are needed. It is not uncommon for these rafts to be pulled by enormous crustaceans called "Crawd", or Dire Crayfish. These beasts of burden are the horse of the swamp, and invaluable to life there. Towns are built on stilted platforms near higher, drier patches of land with the expectation of flooding during the Spring thaw. As a rule of thumb, they practice the Old Ways, worshipping the local fae creatures and other powerful beings near where they make their homes. Blood magic, as elsewhere on the Continent, is common and normalized, often taking the form of personal totems or the occasional letting of blood to enhance one's personal ability for a short time. Towns are usually led by an alderman and large gatherings to both discuss news and hold court are common. Every Mirefolk has a story of experiencing something strange or unexplainable in the swamps, from the smallest Ratling to the sturdiest Crawdwrangler. Helping strangers is a rule, rather than the exception, notwithstanding obvious danger. Living in the Mire gives a person an almost supernatural ability to tell when a situation is going to turn bad in the eyes of outsiders, but locals insist it is just common sense. Nearly every Mirefolk will shoot Spiran scouts if they spot one, and have come together as a collective to hamper their activity as much as they safely can. The Spirans built their stronghold on ground considered sacred to the Mirefolk: a delta where the Ent known as Mangrove used to stand, now turned into impervious lumber, along with all the Dryads of the swamp.
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| Becky, nestling down for the Winter freeze. Source |
